There have been many times and places along the way where I hesitated to speak the words that I could hear in my head, not trusting them to be safe or life-giving, or fearing that I would somehow place myself in danger by letting them out. I suspect that, most of those times, I was wrong. The longer I live, and the less I worry about how people will perceive me or if they will like me (which isn’t often enough), the more frequently I hear these words asking to be spoken. And every blue moon or so, I actually get the courage to let them come out of my mouth in the gentle, non-anxious way that they are spoken to me. Looking back, those are the grace-filled moments, when I recognize that I have been given the wisdom and strength to step aside long enough for love to shine through. For all those many other times, when my indecision and anxiety allow an opportunity to pass untaken, I pray that the compassion in my heart was able to shine through my eyes in such a way that the message reached its intended target in spite of me. I call this one of the rudimentary forms of grace.
© 2012 Todd Jenkins
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